Available for Pre-Order: The Snarl of the Beast: The Collected Hard-Boiled Stories of Race Williams, Volume 2

Written by Carroll John Daly, and with an introduction by Brooks E. Hefner and cover photo by Mark Krajnak, this book will arrive well in time for your Christmas shopping needs.

Here’s the back-cover blurb:

Race Williams returns! Originally appearing in the pages of Black Mask Magazine, author Carroll John Daly pioneered the hard-boiled detective P.I. story and perfected the genre with his classic character, Race Williams. Apart from the novel-length Race Williams stories, these classic hard-boiled thrillers have rarely been reprinted, if ever.

Volume 2 contains the next batch of Race Williams stories, all from 1927–29 as Daly broke the mold of Black Mask by running serialized novels in the pages of that important magazine. Included here are “The Snarl of the Beast,” “The Egyptian Lure,” “The Hidden Hand,” and “The Tag Murders.”

Additional editorial pieces are also included: Daly’s own “Putting Over a Detective Novel” was written to explain his working process while writing “The Snarl of the Beast.” And it’s prefaced by an all-new, scholarly introduction by Professor Brooks E. Hefner of James Madison University.

The Snarl of the Beast: The Collected Hard-Boiled Stories of Race Williams Volume 2 continues this most important series published in years on the history of the Hard-Boiled Detective story.